Email Marketing Audit: A Go-To Guide For Marketers 

Email marketing campaigns aren’t delivering the results you expected? Worse yet, emails land in spam folders, leaving your ROI in the dust? 

If you fail to run an email marketing audit, that’s precisely what happens. 

I know, hearing “audit” sounds as if you’re required to do complex tax stuff. But the audit is simply a structured email campaign check-up to see what’s working and what’s not. 

I digested the whole process for you. You’ll learn how to conduct an audit, avoid common mistakes, and ensure your emails connect with your audience. 

Ready to make your email marketing more effective? 

What is an email marketing audit?

An email marketing audit is a structured process to evaluate your email marketing strategy, processes, or performance. In a nutshell, you want to make sure that:

• People read and open emails.
• They like what you send (click the links or take action).
• Your emails reach inboxes (do not go to spam).

And when running the audit, these are the campaign aspects to account for:

• Subscriber list health: Are your email lists full of engaged subscribers, or do inactive users reduce email deliverability?
• Content relevance: Does your content resonate with the audience? Are you using personalization effectively?
• Design & accessibility: Are your emails mobile-friendly and visually appealing?
• Deliverability & technical issues: Are your emails landing in inboxes or flagged as spam?
• Automation workflows: Do your email triggers perform as expected, or do they need fine-tuning?
• Performance metrics: Do open rates, click-through rates, and conversions meet your goals?

Now, here’s a deep dive into why an audit is so important: 

1. Improve email engagement

Email engagement is a direct indicator of how well your audience relates to your content. Low open rates, click-through rates (CTR), or high unsubscribe rates signal that your emails aren’t hitting the mark. Consequently, your email campaigns become static and fail to deliver results, no matter how much effort or resources you invest.

How an audit helps:

It digs into the root causes of low engagement by analyzing aspects like:

• Subject lines: They need to be compelling and relevant enough to grab attention.
• Content quality: The email needs to provide value without being overly promotional. 
• Send times: The emails need to reach the audience when they’re most likely to engage.

2. Boost email deliverability 

Poor deliverability means your emails land in spam folders or bounce back, causing missed opportunities and wasted efforts. 

To stress, consistent deliverability issues damage your email sender reputation, making it harder to recover and regain trust from Email Service Providers (ESPs).

How an audit helps:

It identifies deliverability roadblocks by examining:

• Sender reputation: Your email-sending domain mustn’t appear in any blacklists. 
• Spam complaints: Your spam rate needs to be under 0.1%. 
• Bounce rates: You need to keep the bounce rate under 2%. 
• Warm IPs: You need to warm up new domains and subdomains properly. 
• Authentication protocols: To authenticate your domains, you need to set up DNS records (DKIM, SPF, and DMARC). 

It all sounds good, but I’d like to put things into perspective for you, and provide a real world example. Mangools, a popular SEO toolkit provider, faced significant deliverability challenges during their 2022 Black Friday campaign. 

With over 3 million emails to send, they found that nearly half of their emails landed in spam folders due to inadequate IP warmup.

To address this, Mangools:

• Created three dedicated IPs and two shared IPs with new subdomains.
• Conducted a systematic IP warmup process before launching the campaign.

The results were impressive:

• Open rates jumped from 1% to 32%.
• Click-through rates increased from 0.16% to 7.55%.
• Spam rates dropped from 63% to 19%.

3. Maximize the ROI of your email campaigns 

Email marketing can help you achieve impressive returns. But this isn’t guaranteed, it requires well-optimized campaigns, hence the need for regular audits

How an audit helps:

An email marketing audit identifies inefficiencies and highlights areas with high potential for improvement, such as:

• Targeting the right audience: Ensure accurate segmentation so emails reach the most relevant subscribers.
• Optimizing content: Refine your messaging to better align with customer needs and preferences.
• Tracking metrics: Pinpoint which campaigns are underperforming and why, such as weak CTAs or poor timing.

4. Enhance personalization

Based on sender.net research, 37% of customers favor personalized suggestions tailored to their interests. If you fail to provide that, you risk coming across as irrelevant or out of touch, which results in lower engagement, unsubscribes, and missed sales opportunities.

But I don’t mean to scare you; there’s a straightforward way out. An email marketing audit uncovers gaps in your personalization efforts. I formed the actions as questions you should ask whenever assessing personalization. Check the section below. 

How an audit helps:

• Segmentation: Do you divide your audience into meaningful groups based on demographics, behavior, or purchase history?
• Dynamic content: Do you use tools to customize email content for each recipient?
• Behavioral triggers: Do you leverage marketing automation to send emails based on user actions, like cart abandonment or recent purchases?

5. Ensure compliance

Compliance with email marketing regulations, such as GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA isn’t just a nice-to-have. Ignoring these regulations can lead to legal consequences, damage your sender’s reputation, and harm your brand’s credibility.

Please ensure your emails are 100% compliant with all the regulations before you start with the campaigns. 

How an audit helps:

An email marketing audit ensures your campaigns adhere to all relevant legal requirements by reviewing:

• Data storage practices: Check if subscriber data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Identify and address vulnerabilities in your storage systems.
• Review transparency in data usage: Ensure your privacy policy clearly explains how data is collected, stored, and shared. Include details on how users can access, update, or delete their data.
• Verify consent mechanisms: Assess whether all opt-in forms comply with legal standards. Use double opt-in to confirm subscriber consent and document proof of consent for audits.
• Analyze data collection practices: Identify if you’re collecting only necessary data. Remove any redundant or sensitive information that isn’t essential for your campaigns.
• Compliance with regulations: Cross-check your practices against GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and other relevant regulations. Ensure you meet all legal requirements, such as data subject rights and opt-out mechanisms.
• Test unsubscribe processes: Verify that your unsubscribe links are functional and easy to use, and remove users from your list immediately, as required by law.

Here, I’d like to share with you a really cool user-centric example that takes compliance to a whole new level. 

Brooke Webber, Head of Marketing at Ninja Patches, shared an inspiring example from Bloom & Wild, a brand that redefined empathetic email marketing. Through an audit, the company realized that some customers found specific email reminders, like those for Mother’s Day, sensitive and potentially distressing.

To address this, they introduced an “opt-out” option that allowed customers to exclude themselves from receiving emails about such events. As a result:

• Customer goodwill increased significantly.
• Unsubscribe rates dropped dramatically.

This example shows that being attentive to customer feedback and giving people control over their email preferences can foster trust and loyalty.

6. Identify hidden opportunities

Hidden opportunities can often be the key to boosting engagement and conversions with your email campaigns. Without regular audits, you may overlook innovative techniques, untapped audience segments, or underutilized features like automation, A/B testing, or interactive content.

How an audit helps:

An email marketing audit uncovers these opportunities by analyzing:

• Automation gaps: Review existing workflows (e.g., cart abandonment, post-purchase follow-ups) and identify underperforming or missing ones. For example, ensure automated emails are personalized and triggered at the right moments to nurture leads.
• Segmentation insights: Analyze your audience data to discover untapped segments. For instance, target repeat customers with exclusive offers or re-engage inactive users with value-driven content.
• A/B testing: Test various subject lines, email designs, and CTAs to identify what resonates best with your audience.
• Interactive features: Add dynamic elements like polls, surveys, or videos to your emails. For example, use a survey to collect product feedback and show users their opinions matter.
• Design updates: Evaluate your emails to ensure they are mobile-friendly and compatible with dark mode.

Again, it pays to check a hands-on example to get a clear idea of how profitable the hidden opportunities can be. Crossrope, a fitness e-commerce brand, aimed to capture email signups from visitors about to leave their site. 

The team first tested a standard exit-intent pop-up that appeared when visitors moved their cursor toward the browser bar. The pop-up included a simple form to encourage signups.

This version successfully converted 7.65% of abandoning visitors, showing the potential of exit-intent technology.

Next, they tested a fullscreen exit-intent pop-up displayed on their blog, which occupied the entire screen and emphasized a clear call-to-action.

This version significantly outperformed the first, converting 13.71% of blog visitors into subscribers.

By testing two variations and analyzing the data, Crossrope achieved a 900% growth in their email list, proving that small, strategic changes can lead to big results in email marketing.

How to perform an email marketing audit?

As indicated, an email marketing audit is a structured process. Before diving into the steps, let’s understand the critical email marketing metrics to evaluate. I’ll repeat some of the pointers mentioned earlier for emphatic purposes. 

• Open rate: Percentage of recipients who open your email. A low open rate may indicate weak subject lines or poor targeting.
• Click-through rate (CTR): Percentage of recipients who click a link in your email. A low CTR suggests your content or CTAs aren’t engaging enough.
• Conversion rate: Percentage of recipients who take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a webinar.
• Bounce rate: Percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered. High bounce rates can harm your sender’s reputation.
• Unsubscribe rate: Percentage of recipients who opt out of your emails. A rising unsubscribe rate signals dissatisfaction with your content.
• Spam complaints: The number of recipients marking your email as spam. High complaints indicate a need to reevaluate your list and content.
• List growth rate: The pace at which your email list expands.
• Deliverability rate: The percentage of emails reaching recipients’ inboxes. Low deliverability often points to a problematic sender’s reputation or technical issues.

Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to performing a thorough email marketing audit:

Step 1: Gather your email marketing data

Having all the relevant data ensures your audit process is informed by real numbers and rooted in facts rather than assumptions. 

To do this, log in to your email marketing platform (e.g., Mailtrap, Constant Contact, HubSpot) and collect the following data:

• Recent email campaigns.
• Audience lists and segments.
• Performance reports (open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, conversion rates, etc.).

Download the campaign performance reports showing critical performance metrics. Also, break down the campaign data by type (e.g., newsletters, promotional emails, automated sequences) to identify patterns.

Now, consolidate all the numbers into a centralized spreadsheet or dashboard for easy reference. Here’s a simple example 🔽

Pro Tip: Some email marketing platforms allow you to download a .csv with all the data prestructured. Taking that route is likely to save you a lot of manual work. 

Step 2: Define your audit goals

After collecting the email data, you need to set clear goals. Look at the metrics gathered in Step 1 to identify trends, gaps, and pain points – use the numbers to inform your goals. 

For example, are your open rates lower than industry benchmarks? If yes, one of your goals should be A/B testing different subject lines.

If you need to fix a few things, segment your goals by categories such as deliverability, engagement, list health, automation, or compliance. Then, prioritize the goals that will impact ROI and audience satisfaction most.

Also, make sure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. An example of a SMART goal would be:

“Increase email click-through rates by 15% in the next three months by testing personalized subject lines and CTAs.”

Step 3: Review and clean your subscriber list

A cluttered list full of inactive, invalid, or unengaged email addresses drags down email campaign performance metrics. Regularly clean and optimize the list to ensure your emails reach the right people.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Analyze subscriber engagement: Segment your list based on engagement levels:
   • Highly engaged: Subscribers who open and click emails consistently.
   • Moderately engaged: Subscribers who engage occasionally.
   • Inactive subscribers: Those who haven’t engaged in a defined period.

Identify patterns, such as inactive subscribers being concentrated in specific campaigns or demographics.

2. Check for invalid or duplicate emails: Use tools like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, or your email platform’s built-in features to identify:
   • Invalid email addresses (e.g., typos or discontinued domains).
   • Duplicate entries that skew your metrics.

Remove these entries to avoid bounces and unnecessary costs.

3. Remove inactive subscribers: Filter out subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails in a specified period. Then, create a re-engagement campaign to give these subscribers one last chance to confirm their interest.

This email from Flock is an example of a cart abandonment campaign. It uses urgency with “2 days left,” lists key features the user will lose, and includes a bold “Buy Flock Now” CTA. The clean design and personalized tone make it compelling and actionable.

After sending the reengagement email, remove subscribers who don’t respond or engage with the re-engagement email (whichever type it might be); keeping them can harm your metrics and deliverability.

4. Ensure proper list segmentation: Group subscribers based on meaningful criteria like:
   • Geographic location.
   • Purchase behavior.
   • Interests or preferences (from surveys or user activity).

This segmentation allows you to send highly targeted and relevant campaigns.

5. Verify opt-in consent: As a reminder, ensure all subscribers have explicitly opted in to receive your emails through proper consent mechanisms, such as double opt-in. Double opt-in confirms subscriber interest and ensures compliance with legal requirements like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. 

Step 4: Audit your email content

Engaging, relevant, and action-driven content helps retain customers and attract new ones. A content audit ensures your messages are clear, aligned with your goals, and tailored to your audience.

Here’s how to perform an email content audit:

1. Evaluate subject lines and preheaders: The subject line is your first impression, so make it count. 
   • Check that your subject lines are clear, compelling, and benefit-driven, immediately communicating the value of the email to the recipient. For instance, instead of “Update on Your Account,” use “Unlock Exclusive Benefits with Your Account Update.”
   • To prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder, avoid spam triggers like “free,” “urgent,” or excessive punctuation. 
   • Align the preheader text with the subject line to create curiosity and encourage clicks. It acts as a sneak peek that complements the subject line. 

Bonus Tip: Check our review of email subject line testers to optimize your headlines for better open rates. 

2. Analyze email copy and messaging: The body of your email needs to provide value, connect with the reader, and encourage action. 
   • Organize your email content in a logical, reader-friendly format. Use short paragraphs or sections to smoothly guide recipients from the introduction to the call to action.
   • Ensure a consistent tone that aligns with your brand voice to create familiarity and build trust. Emails that sound authentic and on-brand resonate more with readers.
   • Directly address your reader’s pain points and interests by offering solutions or insights they genuinely care about. For example, if your audience struggles with time management, provide actionable tips.
   • Leverage storytelling to engage your audience and prove your point. Include customer success stories or real-world examples to emphasize the impact of your message.

3. Review Calls to Action (CTAs): CTAs drive the desired action, such as purchasing, reading a blog, or signing up for an event. So you should do the following:
   • Ensure CTAs are clear, specific, and action-oriented, approximately 2 to 5 words long, to eliminate ambiguity and encourage immediate engagement. 
   • Include urgency or compelling value propositions (e.g., “Start Your Free Trial Today” or “Limited Time Offer”) to prompt quick decisions and create a sense of immediacy. 
   • Ensure CTAs are visually distinct with prominent buttons or links that stand out against the email design. Use contrasting colors and concise text to make them unmissable.

Here’s an example by Airbnb. 

Airbnb’s email shows a CTA with a clear and actionable “View Pricing Settings” button. Strategically placed above the fold, the CTA stands out with contrasting colors and directs users toward a specific action. 

4. Assess personalization: Emails that feel personal build stronger connections with your audience. Here are quick tips on how to approach personalization:
   • Align your email content with user preferences and behavior. Leverage customer data, such as purchase history, browsing patterns, or engagement metrics, to create emails that resonate with individual interests and needs.
   • Deliver problem-solving and engaging content. As mentioned, your emails need to provide tangible value—whether by addressing a challenge, sharing educational resources, or offering entertainment.
   • Personalize promotions for audience relevance, such as exclusive discounts on products they’ve browsed or complementary services to previous purchases.

Take Miro’s email, for instance. It highlights effective personalization by addressing the recipient by name and tailoring the content with relevant updates and tools, such as AI-powered templates and integrations. 

Dynamic elements like “Recommended Templates” and “Register for Canvas 24” ensure the email feels specific to the recipient’s interests.

5. Test content length and formatting: Overly long or poorly formatted emails can overwhelm readers. Check some general rules to achieve desired formatting:
   • Aim for 50 to 125 words for general email campaigns. Emails of this length tend to achieve higher response rates, often exceeding 50%. Keep the content short but impactful​. 
   • Use whitespace strategically to improve readability and reduce cognitive load. Maintain ample spacing between sections to avoid cluttered designs.
   • Structure emails with headings, bullet points, and subheadings. This makes them easier to skim, as most readers follow an “F-pattern” when scanning content​.
   • Align the email length with its goal—keep promotional emails concise while allowing longer storytelling formats for newsletters or case studies to maintain engagement​. 

Step 5: Audit design and layout

By now, it’s not hard to guess that email design and layout are crucial in grabbing attention and guiding recipients toward your CTA. But this doesn’t mean you should send flashy, image or graphics-heavy emails. 

An email that’s hard to read, not mobile-friendly, or visually cluttered leads to low engagement and high unsubscribes. 

Of course, an audit helps overcome all that and here’s what to audit.

1. Check mobile responsiveness: Based on Forbes research, more than 41% of email views come from mobile devices. If your emails aren’t optimized for smaller screens, you risk losing half your audience.
   • Use CSS media queries to adjust layouts, font sizes, and button dimensions for various screen sizes, ensuring optimal readability.
   • Prioritize single-column designs to enhance readability and flow on mobile screens. Multi-column layouts often create clutter and reduce engagement. 
   • Google and Apple recommend using a font size of 17–22px for body text and a minimum of 22px for headlines to avoid squinting on smaller screens​.
   • Buttons should be at least 44x44px (Apple’s guidelines) or 48x48px (Google’s guidelines) to prevent accidental clicks and improve user experience.
   • Rearrange content to stack vertically on mobile devices. 
   • Minimize heavy code and compress large images to reduce email load times. 

2. Evaluate visual hierarchy: A clear structure ensures your email is scannable and guides readers to the most important elements. 
   • Place the most important elements, like your headline or CTA, above the fold.
   • Use different font sizes, bold text, and subheadings to create a logical structure. 
   • Apply the Gestalt principle to group related elements, making the design more intuitive.

3. Optimize image usage: Images enhance your email’s visual appeal but can hinder performance if overused or improperly optimized. Here’s what to check:
   • Images should complement the message, not overpower it. Use product images or visual cues to draw attention to CTAs.
   • Optimize image size below 100 KB to prevent slow loading, especially on mobile. Compressed PNG or JPEG formats are recommended.
   • Add descriptive and relevant alt text for all images to make emails accessible to visually impaired users.
   • Maintain a text-to-image ratio of 60:40 to avoid spam filters. 
   • Use embedded images (displayed within the email body) for better visual appeal. Avoid attaching images as files, as they require downloading and may be overlooked.
   • Avoid image-only emails. Include a mix of text and visuals to ensure accessibility and better email deliverability. 

4. Review CTA placement and design: A well-placed and visually different CTA increases the likelihood of the recipient taking action. To achieve that, do the following:
   • Place the primary CTA in the upper half of the email (above the fold) to ensure it is visible without scrolling. 
   • Design CTA buttons using HTML (bulletproof buttons) to ensure they render correctly even if images are disabled in the recipient’s email client.
   • Use clean, legible, web-friendly fonts (like Arial) for the CTA text. Font sizes between 16 and 20 pixels are recommended for readability.
   • For extended emails, include a CTA above the fold and another near the end to capture hesitant readers who might scroll through the entire email.

5. Ensure consistent branding: Consistent branding builds trust and makes your emails instantly recognizable. 
   • Reinforce your brand identity with consistent use of logos, colors, and fonts. High-contrast color schemes improve readability. For example, use a light background with dark text and contrasting CTA buttons.
   • Match the tone of your email with your overall brand voice. Whether your tone is casual, professional, or witty, it should feel like part of the same conversation your brand has elsewhere​.

All G2 emails have strong branding consistency, the above is just one example. G2 uses signature color scheme (orange, white, and purple), logo placement, and clean, professional layouts. 

The design is visually cohesive, and the tone is friendly yet informative, ensuring the brand identity is recognizable across campaigns.

6. Test across email clients: Different email clients (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail) render emails differently, affecting how your design appears. 
   • Test your emails using tools like Mailtrap Email Testing, Litmus or Email on Acid to preview designs across various clients and devices.
   • Ensure key elements like CTAs and headers are displayed correctly everywhere.

Step 6: Test sending practices

Your email-sending practices can make or break your campaign. Even the best-designed emails won’t perform if sent at the wrong time or lacking proper authentication. Or if it’s not tested for deliverability. 

Simply, testing your sending practices ensures your emails reach the right audience at the right time, in the best possible format.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Test email deliverability: As indicated earlier in the article, deliverability ensures your emails land in your recipients’ inboxes, not their spam folders. 
   • Ensure your emails are authenticated using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols. These protocols validate your domain and email legitimacy. Refer to your ESP’s guides to set these up.
   • Use tools like Google Postmaster Tools or Sender Score to evaluate and maintain a high sender reputation. 
   • To reiterate, keep bounce rates below 2%. Hard bounces indicate invalid email addresses, while soft bounces might signal temporary issues. 
   • Send emails from a consistent domain to build a trustworthy sender identity.

2. Check send times and frequency: Sending emails at the wrong time or too frequently annoys recipients and certainly reduces engagement. To stress, you need to get your scheduling right, and here are the best times to send emails according to a survey conducted by HubSpot:

• Early mornings (8 AM to 9 AM) and mid-mornings (10 AM to 11 AM) are most effective for capturing attention.
• Late afternoons (1 PM to 2 PM) work well for business-related emails as recipients are often catching up post-lunch.
• Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are identified as high-performing days for open rates.
• Avoid late-night emails (9 PM to 6 AM) as these show minimal engagement.

Note that the research also emphasizes sending 1–2 emails per week is considered optimal for maintaining engagement without overwhelming subscribers.

3. A/B test email variations: These tests help identify which subject lines, content, or designs resonate best with your audience. Here are some pointers on how to approach structured A/B testing. 
   • Subject lines:
     • Length: Test short, attention-grabbing subject lines like “Sale Ends Today” against longer, more detailed ones like “Exclusive 48-Hour Flash Sale: 20% Off All Items.”
     • Personalization: Include the recipient’s name or company name, such as “John, Don’t Miss Out on These Deals!”
     • Word order: Shift emphasis by placing benefits early, e.g., “Save 25% Today” vs. “Exclusive Discount Code Inside”
     • Use of emojis: Test subject lines with emojis to see if they drive higher engagement, e.g., “🚨Flash Sale Alert!”​
   • Call-to-action (CTA): 
     • Placement: Test CTAs at the top of the email vs. the bottom.
     • Design: Experiment with button styles versus text links. For example, a brightly colored button (“Shop Now”) may outperform a subtle text link​.
     • Phrasing: Test specific actions like “Claim Your Offer” against generic phrases like “Learn More.” 
   • Content: 
     • Length: Compare short-form emails (e.g., one-liners or bullet points) with long-form content that includes storytelling or detailed information.
     • Tone: Test conversational language against formal tones to determine what resonates with your audience​. Visuals: A/B test the inclusion of customer testimonials versus promotional offers in the body of the email​.
   • Send times: To remind you, based on HubSpot, the highest engagement rates for emails were observed between 9 AM – 12 PM and 12 PM – 3 PM. However, these times may vary based on industry, audience behavior, and geographic location. Here’s an example on how to approach testing the campaign schedule. 
     • Timing: Test morning sends (e.g., 9 AM) against afternoon (e.g., 3 PM) to identify when your audience is most active.
     • Days: Weekday sends (e.g., Tuesday) can be compared with weekends (e.g., Saturday) to optimize open rate

Step 7: Review automation and workflows

Outdated or poorly optimized workflows can result in missed opportunities and frustrated subscribers. To review automation and workflows, here’s what you need to do:

1. Understand your workflow purpose: Define clear objectives for each workflow. Whether it’s onboarding new subscribers, recovering abandoned carts, or re-engaging inactive users, every workflow should serve a specific goal. Map all active workflows like:
   • Welcome series
   • Cart abandonment recovery
   • Post-purchase follow-ups
   • Re-engagement campaigns

2. Refine trigger points: Use event-based triggers like a subscriber signing up, abandoning a cart, or completing a purchase to activate the most relevant emails at the right time. Combine triggers with behavioral data. For instance, send follow-ups if a user visits the pricing page multiple times but doesn’t act.

Pro tip: Test triggers regularly to avoid misfires, like sending a welcome email twice. Ensure recipients exit workflows after completing actions (e.g., removing users from the cart recovery workflow post-purchase).

3. Personalize every step: Dynamic content and segmentation elevate workflows. Use data like purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics to tailor messages. For example, in a cart abandonment series, include images of the abandoned products and a personalized discount. Utilize behavioral triggers to make messages more timely and relevant, such as offering re-engagement campaigns based on inactivity over 60 days.

4. [Reminder] Identify gaps in automation: Missing workflows are lost opportunities to nurture leads or retain customers. Look for areas where automation can fill gaps, such as follow-ups for inactive users or thank-you emails after purchases. You can also consider customer journeys to identify where automated touchpoints could improve the experience.

5. Test workflow triggers: Workflow triggers determine when emails are sent. Misconfigured triggers can result in missed emails or irrelevant messages.
   • Test triggers to ensure they activate correctly (e.g., an abandoned cart triggers the workflow).
   • Verify that recipients exit workflows as intended when they complete an action (e.g., making a purchase).

6. Include behavioral data: Behavioral triggers based on user actions (e.g., browsing history or purchase behavior) create more relevant and timely emails.

Set up workflows triggered by actions like product views, downloads, or searches. Keep using data from past behaviors to refine automation strategies. Here’s an example of how Grammarly does it. 

Grammarly’s email uses behavioral data, like writing streaks and performance metrics, to create personalized updates that keep users engaged and motivated.

So, that’s all for an email marketing audit. You can refer to the complete email marketing audit checklist below to ensure you cover all essential steps in your email marketing audit.

1. Gather your email marketing data: Collect campaign performance metrics, subscriber data, automation stats, and deliverability reports.
2. Define your audit goals: Set specific, measurable objectives based on your data and business needs.
3. Review and clean your subscriber list: Remove inactive or invalid addresses, verify opt-ins, and segment your list for better targeting.
4. Audit your email content: Evaluate subject lines, copy, CTAs, personalization, and relevance for maximum engagement.
5. Audit design and layout: Ensure emails are mobile-friendly, visually appealing, and align with your brand.
6. Test sending practices: Check deliverability, optimize send times, monitor spam triggers, and conduct A/B tests.
7. Review automation and workflows: Analyze existing workflows, test triggers, and fill gaps to improve performance.

What are the common issues found during an email marketing audit?

I’ve already covered a bunch of stuff related to issues you might find. Here, I’m putting it all under one roof to give you a more structured overview. 

1. Low open rates

The average email open rate in B2B is 15.14%. 

Low open rates often occur because your emails fail to grab attention in a crowded inbox. This could be due to generic subject lines, poorly timed sends, or irrelevant targeting. Subscribers are unlikely to open emails if they don’t find them compelling or useful.

Solution: Create subject lines that create curiosity or highlight clear benefits. Use A/B testing to find the best timing and personalize emails to match audience preferences. 

2. High unsubscribe rates

The average unsubscribe rate in the B2B space stands at 0.24%. 

Frequent or irrelevant emails can overwhelm subscribers, prompting them to unsubscribe. If your content doesn’t align with audience expectations or offers little value, subscribers are more likely to opt out.

Solution: Send emails at a frequency subscribers are comfortable with and tailor content to their preferences.

3. Low Click-Through Rates

The average click-through rate in B2B is 2.44%. 

A low CTR indicates that while subscribers are opening your emails, the content or CTAs aren’t compelling enough to prompt action. Vague CTAs or irrelevant content are common culprits here. 

Solution: Use clear, benefit-driven CTAs like “Shop New Arrivals Now” instead of “Click Here.” Personalize email content to resonate with the reader’s preferences or past behaviors.

4. High bounce rates

Bounce rates spike when your list contains invalid, outdated, or mistyped email addresses. Hard bounces (invalid addresses) hurt deliverability, while soft bounces (temporary issues) indicate server or inbox problems.

Solution: Regularly clean your list by removing invalid addresses. Validate email addresses during sign-up to reduce errors and protect your sender’s reputation.

5. Spam complaints 

The optimal spam rate is below 0.1% (1 complaint per 1000 email sent).

Subscribers may mark emails as spam if they didn’t explicitly opt-in, if your content feels irrelevant, or if it uses spammy language. 

Solution: Ensure all subscribers have explicitly opted in; you must never purchase an email list. Test for spam triggers in your emails and provide engaging, valuable content to retain trust.

6. Inactive subscribers

Inactive subscribers are those who haven’t engaged with your emails in months, dragging down engagement rates and affecting deliverability. This often happens due to irrelevant content or lack of consistent re-engagement.

Solution: Run re-engagement campaigns with offers or surveys to gauge their interest. If subscribers remain inactive, consider removing them from your list to maintain list health.

7. Ineffective segmentation

Sending the same email to your entire list ignores individual preferences and behaviors, leading to disengagement. Poor segmentation fails to leverage the full potential of personalized marketing.

Solution: Segment your list based on factors like purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographics. 

How often should you perform an email marketing audit?

The frequency of these audits can vary based on several factors, including the size of your organization, the volume of emails sent, and the dynamic nature of your marketing strategies.

For most businesses, performing an email marketing audit every three months is advisable. This time frame allows you to assess recent campaigns, identify trends, and make necessary adjustments to optimize performance.

However, if your email volume is lower or your campaigns are less complex, conducting audits twice a year may suffice. This schedule still enables you to stay on top of performance metrics and maintain list hygiene. 

Consider the following when determining your audit schedule:

• Campaign complexity: If you run multiple segmented campaigns with various content, more frequent audits can help manage and optimize these complexities effectively.
• Resource availability: Ensure you have the necessary resources and tools to conduct thorough audits without overburdening your team.
• Market dynamics: In rapidly changing industries, more frequent audits can help you meet the latest trends and adjust strategies promptly.

Best practices to improve email marketing results

An email marketing audit helps you identify and rectify the issues, however, improving results often requires revisiting and refining best practices. Even if you’re already following these guidelines, small changes based on audit findings can result in big improvements. 

Here are six key practices to follow, along with contextual tips for fixing issues when the expected results aren’t achieved. Note that I may reiterate and expand on some previously-mentioned tips. 

1. Build a quality email list

Your results depend on the quality of your audience. An engaged and relevant list reduces bounce rates, improves deliverability, and boosts engagement.

To stress, you absolutely need to collect leads ethically through opt-in processes. Double-opt isn’t a requirement by GDPR, for example. But it’s considered as an example of best practice, so I strongly recommend you adopt it. 

Also, make sure to audit your sign-up sources and ensure only genuine, interested users are on your list. And again, never ever buy email lists, in the long run, they can sink your business. 

2. Segment your audience

Make sure that your segments aren’t based on outdated behaviors or overly broad criteria. For instance, if your campaign data stagnates over a longer period of time, chances are either behaviour or criteria are faulty. 

So, reevaluate your audience data and refine segments using demographics, purchase history, or engagement levels.

3. Optimize email design

To reiterate, mobile-friendly design ensures readability and encourages action. Poor design can lead to unsubscribes or missed CTAs.

Your CTAs should be easy to spot and the designs need to be optimized for all devices. Use responsive templates, ensure visuals don’t overshadow content, and test designs across email clients to eliminate compatibility issues​. 

4. Monitor deliverability metrics

Deliverability ensures your emails reach inboxes, not spam folders. Without this, even the best campaigns fail.

You have to configure DNS records SPF, DKIM, and DMARC or you’ll encounter issues with Google and Yahoo. We created a comprehensive video about the requirement, hit the play button below to see it. 

5. Implement A/B testing

A/B testing identifies what works best for your audience, whether it’s subject lines, CTAs, or send times.

As indicated earlier, you shouldn’t be testing too many things at the same time. Otherwise, you’ll get misleading data without a clear idea of which action moved the dial. 

Depending on the metric you want to improve, focus on that one test, then move to the next in a new A/B campaign. 

And as a general guideline, treat your audit findings as hypotheses to test. This approach ensures your refinements are data-driven and aligned with audience needs. With regular audits and adjustments, you’ll continuously improve your email marketing results.

Audit your way to email success!

An email marketing audit is only as valuable as the actionable insights it produces. Consolidate the findings from all the audit steps into a single report. 

You can also use a project management tool like Trello or Asana to track opportunities, assign tasks, and monitor progress. This keeps the process organized and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

Remember, an email marketing audit is not a one-time task but a continuous process to refine your strategy. Start your email audit today and see the difference it makes in your marketing success!